Andre The Giant Created His Own Drink Called ‘The American’ And It Sounds Insane

If you’re a fan of The Princess Bride, Cary Elwes has a book coming out titled As You Wish where he shares stories from the making of the iconic film we all have seen numerous times. One story in particular details Andre the Giant’s drink of choice called “The American” It’s about as insane as you’d imagine a drink invented by Andre the Giant to be.

Here’s a snippet from the interview from TheDailyBeast.com.

You mention this special drink he made, ‘The American,’ which consisted of 40 ounces of various liquors poured into a pitcher, and he’d drink several of these in a single sitting,” followed by Elwes describing the drink as the most toxic thing ever. “I’ve never tasted airplane fuel, but I imagine it’s very close to what that must taste like. It’s very potent indeed, and I remember coughing a lot. But to him, it was like chugging water.

Elwes then described an evening with the Giant where Andre passed out in the middle of a hotel lobby from a night of drinking.

They decided that there was no shifting him. There’s no shifting a 550-pound, 7-foot-4 giant, so they had a choice: either call the authorities, and they didn’t want that kind of publicity, or wait for him to wake up, which was the wiser decision. It should be pointed out that Andre didn’t drink for the sake of drinking—Andre was in a lot of pain, God bless him. His back was injured from carrying all that weight around, and from having other wrestlers breaking chairs over his back. He was due to have an operation right after the shoot, and his doctor didn’t know what kind of pain medication to give him because of his size, so the only way that he could deal with the pain was to drink alcohol. And it didn’t affect him at all. He didn’t flub a line or miss a day. The guy could handle his liquor, let me tell ya.

I have to say, that American drink sounds like one helluva menu item for a guy born in France.

To pre-purchase Elwes book about the making of The Princess Bride, head to Amazon.com.